The Solution

So we need something like a corporation, but it won't exploit the planet, and it has to allow people to act with their best interests in mind, while actually doing something good for everyone else.

My solution is something that looks like an employment agency, and acts like an employment agency, but provides services which most agencies don't, and everybody involved is a shareholder as soon as they join. The extra services would be, career and self improvement counseling, housing, transportation, and grocery services, all for a fee of course, a reasonable fee that is, which comes off they pay check before they get it.

That's it, that's all there is to it. A co-op employment agency with the goal to maximize the benefit of its shareholders in every way possible, other than monetary. It will use money, but the shareholders will be rewarded with things that money can buy rather than money in most cases.

Recap and Expand some more:

1. We have the tools and tech to raise everyone's standard of living very high, we’re just not using them.2. We’re not using them because the world is not set up to make progress towards sustainable goals. We have laws in place to keep corporations focused on making money and that is the opposite of sustainability and the opposite of people being happy. If people felt happy they wouldn’t need to buy things to feel happy, and that is bad for business.3. Ideally we’d set up our laws to work for us, to punish companies that take more then they give back. The problem is no one knows what those look like. So we need to show them.

For this to work we need to operate within the rules and systems in place. We need to ease the world into this idea over a number of years. People need to feel comfortable enough to walk in the place and they need to feel comfortable signing up to try this new thing out. Think of this like a concept car at a car show. No one drives away in the concept car, some people don’t even like it, but it shows a new way of doing things, with hints of what’s to come. Over the next few years we work on making things slightly different until we get there. We ease people into new designs over time, and let them stay in the old ones if that is what they like, but we keep making new ones that make the old ones look obsolete.

Not sure if I’m getting my point across here or not. I’m just saying the way car designers manage to progress their designs over time is really amazing, and should be looked at as a model of how to ease people into new designs, even if we are talking cultural shifts. The new models always resemble the old ones, but you can also tell they are new, and you often like it better from the moment you see it. And back to that concept car analogy, Jeremy Rifkin’s book TIme Wars, points out that we tend to follow those that present to us the nicest picture of the future. So getting this concept car equivalent is really important. It conveys to everyone what we’re aiming for, and it gives them to conviction to join us in our efforts to get there.

I recently read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and in it he tell the story of Paul O’Neill turning Alcoa around by focusing on one Keystone Habit, Worker Safety. Basically he focused on the one thing that no one would argue with, and which could drive change in all other aspects of the company. I think we need to focus on one thing as well, and I think it should be employee happiness (fulfillment). No one is going to argue with that, and everything revolves around it. You might think it’s not a good idea because no one is going to want to do the bad jobs. But the way I look at it, is we now get to try and eliminate the bad jobs. If it is a job someone doesn’t feel right doing, like doing marketing for casinos directed at people with gambling problems, maybe it’s a good thing people won’t be doing that. If it is cleaning up the washrooms, maybe we can design washrooms that are easier to clean, or more fun to clean, maybe self-cleaning, maybe those people only have to work half as much as other people, who knows. But I do know they are not designed for the cleaners right now.

Why is this a good idea?

Everything hinges on our jobs. Out self worth, and happiness, our health and well being, it dictates our schedule, telling us how much time we have to spend with our friends and family and community, the time we have for hobbies. And on top of all that all of our jobs impact the world, the services we provide, the resources we use, the impact our products and advertising have on the society. And the more passionate you are about your job the better you will be at it. Think about the people you know, how many of them love their job or even the company they work for. I'm guessing not too many. If you do know someone, or if you can remember a time when you worked on a project you really loved, try to think about how much better someone is at their job when they love it. If you love what you're doing you're usually getting better and better at it all the time, and becoming really great at it. So if people could do what they wanted without fear of not being able to provide for themselves or their family, they might end up doing things that are really great, or at least working for companies that are doing great things. And they will feel better about themselves, allowing them to be better people in their non-work setting.

I think of my proposal as the capitalism that everyone wants. It has private ownership where private ownership makes sense and it has shared ownership where that makes sense. It’s a much needed evolution in our economy, and just like everything else these days it’s a hybrid. It’s the best of all ideas out there, using the right techniques for the right applications.

1. The power of group purchasing power will allow us to get more for our money (think Groupon but Extreme Groupon)2. The counselling alone could help lead happier lives, giving them skills and knowledge they wouldn't get otherwise3. Shifting the focus away from money, to things you can get with money, people will be able to feel satisfied with their lives, rather than struggling for more and more money.4. If the Employment Agency provides housing, food and transportation options they become a driver for change in the industries. Change towards more efficient products. Right now inefficient products make more sense for the sellers/producers, and we all suffer. 5. By greatly reducing the cost of living for each person, people could feel more free to leave jobs they don't like. Which could lead to the elimination of bad jobs. Both those which no one wants done (taking advantage of others) and those which no one wants to do (sweat shops)

For those of you who like equations here is one to sum this up:Fulfilling careers + minimal monetary compensation + pooling of resources to make everyone involved as satisfied with their life as possible in the most efficient way possible = lots of happy people doing amazing things, living fulfilling lives, with minimal impact on the environment, and inspiring the rest of the world to follow suit

The reason people don't do this:1) they think money will make them happy2) cooperating with others is scary because it puts you at risk of being taken advantage of3) The underlying premise of our economy is that there is not enough for everyone, so take what you can get

The reason this will work:1a) The desire for money is an insatiable desire, so people will never be happy when pursuing money. Other desires can be satiated, so we would do that.1b) When we get compensated with money we only work as hard as we are getting paid, but when we are not paid for our work we do the best we can, usually better than the top paid in the field.2) This risk of getting taken advantage of is real, and the role of the organization is to prevent that.3) We have the technology to provide high material standards of living for everyone on the planet. We aren't because we are too busy trying to make more money, taking as much from each other as we can. By pooling our resources it will make us realize we are all in this together and find solutions to benefit us all. There is no way around the fact that we are all in this together, but it seems like we're not, and people can go their whole lives thinking we're not, and acting like we're not.

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